Show Notes: How Micro-Influencers Can 10x Your eCommerce Growth with Jay Neyer

In this episode of The eCommerce Podcast, Matt Edmundson talks with Jay Neyer from Lantern Soul about leveraging micro-influencers to dramatically improve advertising performance and scale eCommerce businesses from six to eight figures.

Episode Highlights

The Four Levers of eCommerce Profitability (09:28)

• CPMs - Cost to reach 1,000 people
• Click-through rate - Engagement with your content
• Conversion rate - Visitors who make a purchase
• Average order value - How much customers spend

The Micro-Influencer Advantage (20:00)

• Why accounts with just 1,000-2,000 followers often outperform celebrity influencers
• How to identify the right micro-influencers for your brand
• Creating win-win-win partnerships that benefit everyone involved

Influencer Whitelisting Strategies for 2025 (22:28)

• The technical process of running ads through influencer accounts
• Why whitelisted content performs better 95% of the time
• Setting up partnerships that deliver value to all parties

Landing Page Continuity Technique (32:49)

• Creating dedicated landing pages featuring the influencer
• The "five tips" structure that converts visitors into customers
• How to maintain trust throughout the entire customer journey

The Shift to Broader Targeting (36:12)

• Why hyper-specific audience targeting no longer works as well
• How Meta's algorithms have evolved to find customers in broader pools
• Tips for lowering your CPMs while maintaining quality traffic

About Jay Neyer

Jay Neyer is a modern Renaissance man—a philosopher, musician, and multilingual mastermind. Beyond his creative pursuits, he's a powerhouse in e-commerce, having generated over 100 million in sales and developed over 500 websites and apps. As a featured speaker for Shopify and Amazon, Jay blends big-picture thinking with technical expertise to turn six-figure brands into eight-figure success stories.

Resources Mentioned

• Lantern Soul: lanternsol.com
• Connect with Jay on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jayneyer

Connect With Us

• Subscribe to our newsletter: ecommercepodcast.net
• Follow Matt on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mattedmundson
• Join our community: ecommercepodcast.net

The eCommerce Podcast brings you real talk about building successful online stores. Every Thursday, we speak with experts and founders who've been in the trenches, built the stores, and learned the hard way—so you don't have to.

#MicroInfluencers #eCommerceGrowth #InfluencerWhitelisting #ConversionRateOptimization #PerformanceMarketing

So welcome back to the

e commerce podcast with me, your host,

Matt Edmundson.

This is a show all about helping

you deliver eCommerce Wow.

And to do that.

I am chatting to the wonderful chap

called Jay Neyer from Lantern Sol.

We are going to be getting into what it

looks like to grow your brand from six

figures to seven figures to eight

figures and beyond.

From the man who has been there, done

it, read the book, seen the film, got

the t shirt and all of that good stuff.

So grab your notebooks, grab your

pens because you're going to want to get

into all of this.

But before we do.

Let me just take a few moments

just to say if you haven't done so

already, make sure you go over to the

website, sign up for the newsletter,

ecommercepodcast.

net, uh, and we'll be sending

stuff out to you.

It's all getting revamped at

the moment, the newsletter.

It's going to be so much better than

it was and it was pretty cool before,

but it's going to be so much better.

Uh, so those changes at the time of

recording probably were about two weeks

off, I think, so.

Let me tell you, that means by

the time this has come out, it's

been working for a little while.

So go over to the website, e

commerce podcast.

net, sign up to the newsletter.

We only send out one email a week.

It's pretty cool, pretty tame, uh, and

pretty insightful.

Uh, and so yeah, go do that.

Also come follow me on Instagram,

not Instagram.

What's the other one?

LinkedIn.

That's what I'm using a lot of,

uh, come find me on LinkedIn.

Would love to meet you there.

Matt Edmundson, uh, come say, how's it?

Uh, we get to meet a lot of e commerce's

on LinkedIn.

A lot of, a lot of listeners,

which is great.

And you tell me the stories and, uh, and

I love to hear them.

So yeah, do come do that.

Anyway, enough about that.

Let's talk about Jay, a modern

Renaissance man.

It says here in my notes, which I

think is fantastic.

A philosopher, a musician, a

multilingual mastermind beyond

his creative pursuits.

He's a powerhouse in e commerce has

generated over a hundred million

in sales and developed over 500

websites and apps.

He's a featured speaker for Shopify

and Amazon and Jay blends big

picture thinking.

With technical expertise to turn

six figure brands into eight figure

success stories, which coincidentally

is why we have him on the show.

Yes, it is.

So, uh, Jay, welcome to the show, man.

Uh, great to have you all the way from

Cincinnati, which I believe is in Ohio.

If my American geography serves me.

Yeah, it's great to have you.

Yeah, it's good to have you.

It's good.

Are you a Cincinnati Reds fan?

That's what I know about Cincinnati.

There's a baseball team.

Yeah, for the sports

scene, you know, we don't have a

lot of accolades.

Um, I also travel a fair amount.

So, Cincinnati's home base, but I

bounce around all over the world.

Uh, fortunately, my work I can just

do from a laptop.

So, whether it be in Brazil, or Colombia,

or somewhere in Europe, I'm, I'm

most often not traveling, so I've

lost track of their games and scheduling

over the years.

I, I frankly, uh, prefer to put my

time and attention to other things

outside of sports, but I, I root for

them just for the sake of my friends

and family wanting to be happy.

Indirectly.

You could say I'm a fan.

Matt Edmundson: Indirectly.

A fair play.

I, I appreciate that.

I, I remember when I was a kid,

and I appreciate this is going

back a long time.

Uh, but when I was a kid, my dad,

uh, traveled to the States with,

for business for the first time.

And it was a big deal.

You know, this was sort of in the

early eighties.

This was a big deal when your dad

sort of traveled to the States and

he ended up going to Cincinnati and

he bought me back this t shirt, the

Cincinnati t shirt, which I think is

still in my mum's attic, if I'm

going to be honest.

Uh, and he bought me back a Cincinnati

Reds cap, um, and he said, you have

to support the Cincinnati Reds

baseball team.

And I'm like, well, sure, why not?

I don't know anything about

baseball.

We didn't have the internet back then.

I was never going to see the game.

Um, And then that's the last time I

thought about it until I've just

spoken to you now.

So

yeah, well fun fact for

you, Cincinnati Reds, they were

the very first professional

baseball team in the U.

S.

Matt Edmundson: Ah, okay.

Yeah.

Well, there you

go.

Some trivia, some useless

trivia knowledge you'll never need,

but now you know.

Matt Edmundson: Well, you never

know, it might come up in a pub quiz.

Um, you know, those, those kind

of questions come up all the time, don't

they, in, in pub quizzes, which is,

uh, it's wonderful to have it.

I'll have forgotten it by

the time we finish recording, though.

But, uh, at least I know it now.

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Well, listen, let's jump into

it because I, I loving your bio.

You know, you've done a lot of work.

You've had your own e-commerce store,

which you, you mentioned before

we hit the record button, which

you built, sold, and uh, and, and

got out of there.

You, you now help other companies with

their own eCommerce stores and, and

helped them scale.

Uh, and so I'm intrigued 'cause

your story is a little bit similar

to mine in the sense we both

built quite big online businesses

and sold them.

Uh, and so it's like, it's like

looking into a mirror, uh, J is,

is, is what it is.

Um, and so I'm kind of curious

about your story.

How did you, how did you get

into e commerce?

Yeah.

So in school, back in university, I

was doing a double major in philosophy

and accounting, and I figured if I just

picked the two most opposite things,

I'll find something in the middle.

And, uh, it, it, it worked

out pretty well.

I, uh, I started doing accounting

internships and I was just bored

out of my mind.

I was sitting behind a cubicle, just

hating my life, hating my job,

hating my outfit that I had to

put on every day, really not liking

where I was at.

And I remember very vividly one

day driving home after, um, there

was like a pub crawl or something like

that after work.

And I just, I felt like I was

just surrounded by the most.

Uninspiring people you could imagine

just having the most boring

conversations.

And I remember just crying on

my way home.

Like, how is this my life?

Like, how did, how did this, how

did this happen?

Like, where did I, where

did I go wrong?

And so shortly after that, I decided

I'm going to start reading about famous

entrepreneurs, try to make something

of my life.

And it seemed like technology was

a common theme.

And so I figured I'm going to

learn how to code.

How do I do that?

I'm going to start building a

website and I'll start building

it for myself.

Uh, so I started off making a website,

making a blog, just screwing around,

really making a couple of websites

and then sharing it, publishing it out.

And then someone approached me and

said, Hey, my family business needs

a new website.

Can you build it for us?

We'll pay you a thousand bucks.

And my eyes just lit up cause that

was the first time someone had ever

offered me money for something like that.

And I just couldn't believe it, that

people pay for this.

And so that just sent me down this

whole path of building websites.

Later launched, uh, some e

commerce brands.

My first one was unsuccessful

and had a lot of lessons from that.

I can tap into, but the second one,

uh, really took off after lots of years

of perseverance and, um, we were

fortunately able to grow that to

eight figures.

Matt Edmundson: That's great, man.

That's great.

I do feel like we connected somehow.

I did accounting at uni, although

I did accounting and law, so they

were quite similar.

I left university and thought, I

never want to be an accountant, ever.

But it's been quite useful

knowledge to have.

Jay Neyer: Absolutely.

So

Matt Edmundson: I'm super grateful

for it, and I'm grateful for good

accountants, I really am, but

it was never going to be me.

Right.

I read the business books, got into

entrepreneurship and the reason I

got into e commerce was because somebody

came to me and said, can you

build me a website?

I'm like, sure.

And they said, do you know

how to do it?

I'm like, no, but how hard can it be?

Right.

And this was in 1998.

So, uh, here we are, however many years,

almost 30 years.

Geez, is it really that long?

And so I did fascinating,

uh, absolutely fascinating.

So you, you've, uh, you've built

businesses.

Some of.

not worked, but one obviously

clearly did work.

Um, and you've, you've learned

a lot from that.

So let's jump straight into it.

Cause I know, um, I know I'm fascinated

by your insights and stories in this.

So we've got a website.

Um, in fact, I was talking to a couple

today, their company turns over a half

a million a year.

Um, they, they, Um, sell

products online.

They got an econ business sells half

a million on year.

We're looking about do we do an

equity partnership with them?

Um, how do I grow that brand from

its six figures up to eight

figures and more?

Let's jump straight into it.

What's your first thing that we

should think about?

Yeah.

First, I just like to look at the

overall economics of the business.

What type of industry is it in?

Is it in a growing and

expanding market?

Is it in a contracting?

Um, it's very different strategies

when we have price points of items that

are, uh, called like 600 to 1000 bucks

versus it's more of a consumable product

where it's maybe 20, but you're trying to

just build out that that lifetime value.

So one of the very first things I

do is just look at the historical

standing of it.

Um, and just the total addressable

market size.

What does that look like?

Uh, after that, what I would look at is

how are its current revenue channels.

So how's it getting new customers

specifically?

Is that coming from referral, SEO,

paid ads, email?

What is their customer retention

look like?

Um, and then really typically the main

growth magnets are going to be

the paid ads, SEO front, uh, working

with influencers.

We can dive into some of

that in a bit.

Um, but if those economics are

positive, like I, what I often find

is many business owners just don't

know their numbers in terms of like,

what is, what is the max we can acquire

a customer against the AOB versus LTV.

Um, and if they really know those

numbers and it can help determine

just how aggressive you want to get

with scaling.

Um, we have some accounts where they

just have insane lifetime value from

a single customer and, you know,

we've been acquiring customers for say

that lifetime value is 250 and we're

acquiring customers for 18 and like, I'm

telling you, like turn up the gas,

put more fuel in people, just, you

know, apprehension.

So you'd be surprised, like, I

think just, I, I'm kind of numb to.

Uh, or I guess I just have less

emotional investment because oftentimes

this is like someone's precious

baby that they're trying to care for.

I'm like, Hey, I, I can't do anything

to potentially put in a position

of jeopardy.

And I totally get that.

But, um, the nice thing about my

perspective has just been from just, you

know, comes down to a spreadsheet at

the end of the day.

And if you know those numbers,

you can turn those knobs dial it up

and just get the whole machine, uh,

producing more.

Um, and then on the backend.

So I'd say that's typically like

more of the front end top, top.

piece of the funnel of the

growth engine, more middle funnel.

I'd start looking in terms of like

the, the website CRO, how's the

conversion rate?

Um, what is that, uh, bounce rates and

things like that.

Um, I would also be looking at their

email performance.

Generally, we look to have a benchmark

of email doing 25 percent of total

store revenue.

So

in your case, if you

guys are doing.

Uh, half a million.

I'd be looking to see that email is

doing at least 25 percent of that.

If it's not, chances are, it's probably

under optimized.

Um, and yeah, just going through that

kind of complete audit and then

figure out what are, what's, what,

what pain points, where can we massage

friction out of the system to probably

get the most return on, um, time or

capital invested.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's

a long list.

I wish she's great.

Um, thank you.

I've been hearing, um,

Uh, the, the fray, maybe it's just me,

maybe I've just been out of the wrong,

the right circles for a little while.

But more recently I have heard people

talk about Tam than I have, maybe in

the last two months I've heard people

talk about that more than I have in

the last six years.

I don't, I don't know if this is

just me, uh, or whether this is

something that has come out of it, but

you mentioned that and I was kind of

curious as to why.

Jay Neyer: Uh, I find it

very relevant specifically if I'm

calculating like SEO or even paid

ads for that matter.

If like, I'm trying to just get a sense

how much global search, so if I'm

trying to capture.

Whatever percent of a specific

keyword or phrase that has a lot of

purchase intent.

I want to see how many people are

looking for that.

So like insurance in the U S is

one of the most competitive keywords

that's going to have way more

competition than Cincinnati plumber,

for example.

And so just getting a sense of how many

people are actually looking for the

specific service or product is going to

give you a sense of.

How much ceiling is there for really

scaling and growing?

Um, and it's, it's more so also just

see directional, uh, growth.

So I look for growing industries

or collapsing industries.

So like, Hey, newspapers, physical

print is probably not an industry I

want to be investing a lot in right

now, but maybe digital collectibles

or other things where I see

market expansion.

It's really easy to just, you know,

ride a wave that's carrying you forward

versus trying to row a canoe upstream.

Um, and, and that happens with

business owners that we consult with.

So, you know, we can quickly,

easily identify, is this a growing or

contracting market?

And when it's growing, it just

makes it a lot easier for us to

do our jobs and position them well

versus, Hey, we have a full team trying

to paddle a canoe upstream for you.

And we can probably make some

distance and some performance, but at

the end of the day, we're, we're still

rowing upstream.

And so there's only so far we

can get with that.

So I find that very helpful for just.

Getting sense of direction

Matt Edmundson: like it can be a

simple case of I like what you said

there, Jay, about just going to Google

and typing stuff in and seeing what

the search volume is on something

to give you some sort of idea.

I mean, obviously, you can research it

further and get more accurate figures

on the market size, but, um.

It's a, it's a, it doesn't have

to be massively complicated to

give you some kind of insight,

which I like

to give you more specifics.

We typically use like a trust

keyword, get a mapping of how

much search volume keyword difficulty

also using the Google ad planner.

So, I mean, honestly, just

between both those tools, you can get

enough information if you feed in like

a good list of.

of keywords or phrases that we

want to, those tools will summarize very

effectively for you.

How much monthly searches, even

if you're just doing that monthly

searches and keyword difficulty, um, you

can get a sense of like, where does

it make sense to direct my attention

and efforts.

And do you find yourself

just predominantly looking at, say,

keyword searches in the States?

Um, or are you looking at all

the countries that you're selling in or

potentially selling in, I suppose?

Yeah, we know we look across

the board, majority of our clients

are U. S. based, but we have plenty

international.

We have some, you know,

throughout Europe.

Uh, I'm also really into

languages myself.

So, uh, the volume from those is also

pretty noteworthy.

So Spanish speaking markets, even in the

U. S. The Spanish speaking market is

pretty significant.

And I think Expected to be at least 50

percent by 2050 or I'm not sure

the exact year, but it's, uh,

it's an important demographic as well.

So, um, I would pay attention

to both of them.

Um, but it really just depends

on where you can service

your clients.

And sometimes you might have logistics

of like, Hey, we'd love to be able to

fulfill to people in the EU, but we

just don't have a warehouse there.

And for us to fulfill a single

unitary order, the economics of it just

don't make sense.

So, um, it can apply in both contexts.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no,

fair enough.

And of course, if you don't have a

warehouse in Europe, give us a ring.

We've got one in the UK.

Anyway, um, do you, switching back to

what you mentioned a second ago about

you love languages.

It said here in your little research

that you're a polygot, which I

think is one of the best words around.

I just think it's just such a

great word, but you can, you can

obviously speak multiple languages.

How important is it for e

commerce sites?

So, for example, I'm a U. S. website,

um, obviously there is a lot of Spanish

speaking, and certainly in certain

parts of the U. S., like I was in Miami

a few, a few months ago, and actually I

was, I was surprised because I've not

been to Miami for a long time and

I was surprised how little English

was spoken and how much everything

was Spanish.

I don't know why, I just, it just

was what it was.

Um, how important is it then to

think about or look at, say,

multilingual sites?

Would you do an English version and

a Spanish version?

Um, or do you just focus on English

and think actually everybody can copy,

paste and put it into ChatGPT for

the translation?

It definitely starts

with English first.

It will make a difference of like

somewhere like Miami is probably gonna be

more, that's going to be more of the

case than somewhere like Minnesota,

for example.

Um, but in general it's like, Hey,

why would we not want to have

more keywords and potential volume?

Like, is there anything that

would impede this product from being

sold to someone who speaks and

feels more natively comfortable in a

different language?

Like very rarely is that the case.

So, uh, it's always going to be a value

add, I would say.

Is it going to be the most value add

compared to, uh, you know, your list

of 10 or 20 other things you could

be focusing on, you know, that could be

subject for debate.

Um, but I would say when in doubt,

like it's, it's, it's definitely

a value item in my experience and

can potentially also just help

unlock other different keywords

or phrases that.

Um, otherwise you wouldn't be able

to optimize around.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it's an

interesting, it's quite

timely actually, because one of

our companies, which does sell

into continental Europe, um, we're

to, we're now looking at getting,

say, the labels of the product

translated into French, possibly

French, German.

Um, And seeing if that has an

impact on things.

Uh, and so this whole language and

translation and, um, understanding search

terms in German are going to be very

different to search terms in English.

Uh, but understanding what

they are is, uh, that's a skill

in its own right.

Right.

I mean, you've got to have a good

grasp of things going on there.

So you've, you've sort of, you've,

you've given your list, so you

take an overview.

You're looking at, you know, is

this growing, is this expanding?

So let's assume we're in an

expanding industry.

It's a growing market.

The company, the company that I

spoke to earlier, um, I won't mention

their name or their industry because if

they're listening, I've not got their

permission to share their story.

But, uh, you know, if I did, I would

quietly say, um, They are in, I would

say, a very fast growing market.

Um, but it's quite a, I say fast

growing market, I think it's

more of a very established market.

It's a very big, sort of,

niche space.

Um, they've stagnated for

two years.

They've not, sort of, grown,

uh, in any way.

Um, their profit isn't, they, so

they focused more on profitability

than new customer acquisition.

Um, which I thought was an

interesting choice.

Uh, so that's sort of them.

I don't know if you want to

throw anything else in there.

I appreciate the limited data.

Uh, so like roughly what

type of average order value

would you say

Matt Edmundson: about 30 U.

S. Dollars.

Okay.

And is this a consumable or

something you would have a repeat usage

or what would that LTV look like?

Matt Edmundson: Well, the in an

interesting question because they

didn't actually know what their

lifetime value was.

Um, of a customer.

So going back to your earlier point

of customers, not People not actually

knowing their data, which I find

intriguing because I'm like, well, this

has got to be one of the first questions

I'd like to know the answer to.

So they're looking at that.

Now I'm going to suggest their

lifetime value is probably

around 70 bucks.

And I think they, um, they have about

a 25 percent return customer rate.

So 25 percent of the customers come

back and buy for a second time.

Okay.

And then last question for the

sales that they are getting, um, do you

know, break down what channels are

this coming from?

Paid ads, search.

95

Matt Edmundson: percent is coming

from paid meta ads.

95%.

Okay.

So not like Google that egg hasn't

cracked yet.

No.

Well, yeah.

Jay Neyer: Step number one

is definitely the LTV piece.

And even if you want to, like, those are

pretty different numbers between

that 30 and 70.

Um, like that just highlights some of

the main differences between, um, Like

looking at it from the LTV versus the

AOV standpoint, because 30 is like,

you're, you're going to have,

you're going to have a tough time

regardless, just because of that

lower price point.

So I will also look to see what we could

do to raise that AOV to whether bundle

more items, increase the perceived value,

even if it's digital add ons or other

guides or whatever things to just

improve the overall value, because.

CPMs, even for like really good

accounts, I would say if we're a

20 is a pretty good benchmark.

So just the cost of advertising

for a thousand impressions, like

you're already going to be eating

into that 30, um, acquisition

pretty quickly.

And so it's kind of like, I'm guessing

probably why they haven't scaled

is because they have the top out

for the ad spend of what they're

willing to go relatively capped.

And honestly, based on those numbers,

I would say it's probably higher

at the 25 percent because if it's

30 average order, and we call it 70,

that means like 2.

1, 2. 1 or 2.

3, 2. 2 in that range, in terms of

orders per customer.

And I, I, they should ideally look

at that on like a, uh, a 60 or 90 day

interval, because sometimes where

LTV can screw you off, it's like.

It affects your cash flows a lot,

which I learned from when I was

previously having a business myself.

So you're paying for tomorrow's inventory

with funds today, um, and so you don't

want to be like in a negative cash,

cash cycle crunch.

If you're building on that LTV, but

that capital isn't coming in for

another, you know, if it's, if it's

six months or 12 months instead

of that, and that can get a little

bit more tougher to calculate.

But.

Um, I would say the retention

seems really big.

I would look to at least get 25,

even pushing up to 30 percent

on the email.

So making sure that they're really

retaining customers as best as they

can, since it seems like it's an item

that people come back and reproduce.

Um, the meta dependency, what I

would do, walk into meta in a second.

What I would do outside of meta

is look at SEO.

If they haven't done any specific

strategies, you'd be surprised at

how well that still works.

Um, and then Google ads as well, uh,

very oftentimes.

Without knowing the product, I would

say like, I'd be surprised if they

can't replicate some of those models

over to Google.

Um, but getting on the meta side,

cause that seems like where it's

ultimately working and I'm, I'm usually

a fan of going deeper in areas

versus trying to go wider, like

before you've really built out

a channel, I think for many businesses,

it's like, Hey, we don't need to

do more things.

We just need to do the, the handful

of things that we're doing just

exceptionally better.

And so of all the things I'd say,

probably going deeper on meta

would really help starting with those

economics would be step number one.

Um, what we've been doing for a

lot of brands that we've been able to

grow up to eight figures is, uh,

doing whitelisting with influencers.

So we're in this age of influencers now

where people just have a much better

relationship with an individual than

like a corporation or a logo.

And many of these businesses are

just going to have frankly, zero

brand recognition.

So.

Where we've had a lot of success

is, um, running these ads through

influencers accounts, and

these can be micro influencers.

We've had people with a thousand

followers, 2000 followers, and

have really great success.

And we've had, you know, notable,

famous people like Joe Rogan or

Gronk, uh, having ads as well.

And those are obviously like very

different calibers in terms of level

of influencer.

But even on the smaller end, we

continuously see that whenever brands

do this, they have better results.

And it's a win, win, win.

It's a win for the brand

because they're getting better

acquisition costs.

You know, their economics on the ad

model makes sense for the influencer.

It's a win for them because the.

The brand is essentially paying

to send traffic to their page.

So like for one of the influencers

I calculated, we had sent them over

18 million, uh, impressions from a

different accounts that they paid 0 on.

So obviously you can imagine a lot

of that converts into followers.

And then hopefully it's a win for the

consumer as well.

Assuming you have a product that people

want and need and, uh, ultimately,

you know, you're, you're providing

your service by getting it to them

at a. Uh, and more economies of scale.

So we'll oftentimes do more whitelisting

at, um, on the ad creative side.

And then on the landing page side,

what we've been doing lately is

having specific landing page

funnels, uh, carry off of

that influencer.

So I'll give you an example of that.

We had an account where we had all

the ad creative specific, um, with

an influencer, and then you

come to that page and, Oh, it's

the same person.

So you just have a consistency of

that buying funnel that's worked

really well, um, for top of funnels.

Also, I'd say like doing listicle type

of content of having a landing page that,

um, especially if you have an item

that's less of a commodity and you

need to do a lot more education on.

Uh, I'll give you the example of

like, maybe, maybe you're selling a

sleep supplement.

You want to help someone get

better sleep.

What we do is put together a guide.

Here are the top five recommended

neuroscience, uh, tips for getting

better sleep.

And maybe three or four of them

will be like peer reviewed articles

or things pointing back to doctors

and medical advice.

And then maybe we'll slip one item

in that's about their product or

service that's being offered.

So it's, it's kind of going for

a softer sale.

Where you're not like pitching

directly your product, but just

educating on a subject or a pain

point that they have, and then

introducing your product as part

of that solution.

So we see that work really well

for top of funnel.

And then going down to the bottom

of the funnel, it's honestly just

like static images still work great.

Like we, people often jump straight

to video, but we see like images

really work really well for that

reconversion, just product shots, maybe

testimony or feature feature a call out.

And those, those still do wonders.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, they do.

Uh, I, I can attest the images are still

doing very well.

Um, I'm, I'm curious again.

I've got lots of notes here, Jay.

So I, I'm going to pick on the,

the first thing that stands out.

So talk us through the, Influence,

uh, thing a little bit more.

So more and more people are talking

about this.

I was just on LinkedIn earlier,

and Jordan Wester just posted.

Jordan Wester, previous guest.

I don't know if you know Jordan.

Really interesting guy about

social commerce.

And he was, he was posting

about influence marketing, as has

Jordan's been.

And he He was waxing lyrical about it and

more and more people are, especially

with the way social commerce is now

starting to, it's seemingly starting

to take off.

Finally, we'll see what happens

with tick tock, obviously, in

America, but it seems to be sort

of taken off at least a little bit.

How do you go about finding

and recruiting good influencers?

Is this something you do as

a in house?

Is this something you get

clients to do?

Is this something that you get an

agency to do?

What's your, your tips there?

Jay Neyer: It's a little

blend of both.

Um, there's platforms that

we've utilized in the past too.

Honestly, the best what we've seen,

uh, either working directly ourselves

or with clients that we work with

is just get a VA and spreadsheets

and just direct outreach.

It's very much in the paint, like

just getting into the weeds and

sending out massive messages and trying

to be targeted and engaged with it.

That's frankly what we've seen work

best compared to other platforms

where you've paid to facilitate

those marketplaces.

TikTok and Instagram also

have marketplace for creators.

So I anticipate more tools coming around

that specifically.

Um, the model is still very

nascent and I'd say continuously

growing.

And I think it's.

Even though it's like, there's a lot

already in that, I think we're just

going to see more and more over the

next five years of what I, I predict

that to get even bigger, not less.

Yeah.

That's what, that's like one of the

examples of, I was referring to

of like, what are growing pools versus

shrinking pools.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Um, and so honestly,

yeah, getting a, getting a VA and.

Going through the DMS is, it's frankly

where we see many brands get that.

Um, but you also want to make

sure you have a compelling offer.

It can point to examples, keep it

focused on them.

So again, when we do that, we just

show like, here's another influencer.

Here's, here's Brian, for example.

Here's the numbers of how many millions

of people we've sent to his profile.

Oh, yeah, I spent 0 on this.

So we're giving you free marketing

so you can have some assets to just

make it a, a no brainer for them.

Um, that I think will also, you know,

you could send the exact same pitch,

but then you make it more about them, you

get significantly sign up rates versus

before, like, Hey, we want to do this

confusing thing that you don't

fully understand, you know, like

I found so much message of what you

sent sent to the prospect in mind.

So just keep it focused on

them, how they're getting benefit,

um, why it's a win, win, win.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, clarity,

I think is super important, isn't it?

So you mentioned that you're

sending them.

A lot of people to the influencer's

social profile, if I've understood

that correctly.

Um, and so the influencer is also

therefore benefiting in terms of growing

their following.

Um, and I'm curious, how do you drive

people to there?

So when you say that about an

influencer, we're going to drive,

you know, whatever people to you.

Are you using paid ads to drive traffic

to their channels?

No.

So, uh, how, how it looks in the

back end is we link our ad account

to their profile.

So suppose you're the brand, you're

still footing the entire bill for

all the ad spend.

They're just linking their profile

to your account.

And majority of the cases too,

we're still sending them to the brand

landing page or the brand website.

Um, but this is coming up from their

profile, so we're not, we're generally

still doing conversion based

campaigns that are the pixels incentive

and goal is to capture an actual

purchase versus like sending traffic

to profile or something like that.

Um, but they're getting the

spillover from people who also

just see them, see their content,

uh, click on their page, you know,

cause from that, from that ad, you

can, who's, who's this guy who's.

Talking about this product.

What are they all about?

Click on the page and go down their

funnel that way.

Um, so it's still typically conversion

campaigns that we're running.

Matt Edmundson: And do you find

with influencers, it's, it's, um, a

case of, you still need to set a fee

or are people a lot more aware of.

Uh, no, I want a percentage of sales.

I, I, I, um, I, I think I'm going

to send a lot of people to your site.

So I, I want, you know, 10 percent

or whatever.

I don't know, whatever a

good rate is.

This

is a good question.

This is where we see a lot of variance.

And so I'll give you an example.

We have, we have one particular

client who has, uh, very expensive

products that are very heavy to ship.

So it's not feasible for them to just be

like slinging these things all around

giving you a free product because

you can either go free, you can

go paid route for paid for posting

or commission route of based on volume.

And usually we, I mean, we've

done all three depending on the

size of the account.

I would say we also try to

leverage and get good social proof

in the forms of product reviews and

things like that.

So anytime you can combine that with

influencers, it's really helpful.

Especially on the micro level, they're

probably more likely to do that.

And it's a lot easier for you to

facilitate like an actual purchase on

your website that can also lead back

into, uh, a verified review, getting

the testimony, getting the

content from that.

Um, but we also, you know, again, some

of our partners have been able to work

with influencers like Gronk or,

uh, or Joe Rogan.

And those have, you can imagine

like some of these have, actually

with Joe, it didn't have any cost.

The product was just that good.

Um, but for Gronk, there's definitely

compensation payment affiliated

with that.

And so, uh, for smaller brands,

again, even, even when we run the

same content with whitelisting and

just from the brand account, 95 percent

of the time, we still see better

performance with the whitelisting.

Um, so even, even with individuals

who have like a micro influencer of

thousand, 2000, like we still see good

results with it.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

That's really fascinating.

Really fascinating.

I am super curious about the influencer

landing page.

Um, just explain, I mean, you said

obviously there's a photo of or an

image of the, the influencer on the

page, so there's that connection,

uh, which comes, which comes through

that, um, uh, dig into that for me

a little bit more if you could.

I'll just go off of the

topic of sleep.

You know, this isn't a client at

all by any means.

I'm just the first thing that popped

in my head, but we'll run with it.

So suppose I have a product that's for

helping with sleep, and I found a list

of, Um, 10 or so sleep experts on

Instagram, people who talk about it

on their channel.

What I would do is approach them and

say, Hey, I want to set up a win

win win partnership with you, where

we're going to be running this

whitelisting content from your account.

We'll build out landing pages.

We're going to be paying for

all this traffic.

You're going to get free impressions

for, you know, whatever the weekly.

Podcast or show that he, that they

do on their own individual, you're

not going to get new eyeballs on that.

So I'd approach them about that and then

I'd say, okay, you know, assuming they

give me the thumbs up, let's do this.

What I would maybe then do is

create a landing page specific

around that.

Uh, we'll just call him Dr.

Jay.

So Dr. Jay has a landing page

where it's his image at the top.

Here are five tips.

Dr. Jay has for getting better

sleep each night, and one of them

might be, um, using, uh, Like turning

off your screen at least an hour or

two before night using low light or

red light, ideally in the evenings,

um, talking about caffeine, the latest

that you can have at the end of the day,

and then maybe item number four is this

specific supplement that helps.

Uh, get sleep.

And then number five might be talking

about having a cooler bedroom.

And so like four of these items

are just kind of tips or items.

And then, Oh, one of these is also a

product or a service that I'm offering

that you could consume with that.

And so that would be more top of

funnel when we're trying to educate.

And that's generally going to be more

necessary for people who have zero

exposure to you.

It's going to be a much softer sale.

And we're trying to make that look

like more like a. An article or a blog

publishing versus being like, this

is very obviously a website of

someone trying to sell me something.

Um, so that's about that would

look like a top funnel if you're

more middle funnel.

And I have some notoriety, a simpler

form of that could just be more of

like a collection or a product page.

And the simplest form even is just

having your hero banner with Dr. J or

whatever influence in that image, just

so you have some continuity and then

you can also, it'll be a lot easier to

get into that, some of that tracking.

If you do have, uh, like commission,

revenue share, things like that.

See how traffic, how traffic is

coming in from it.

Matt Edmundson: Really smart.

I like it.

And you didn't know this, but I

actually sell a sleep supplement.

So I'm going to steal all

your ideas.

Thank you.

Uh, it, it, it, it.

It is, um, it is interesting, isn't

it, how it's, it's not, I don't think e

commerce is becoming more complex.

I just think it's becoming more

nuanced, isn't it?

And you, you're now, years ago, you

just go, there's a sleep supplement,

just take it, what's wrong with you?

And then you had to do the blog post

and say, this is, you know, something

interesting about sleep supplements.

And then you have to do the

YouTube video.

And all of these things sort of

happen and now we're getting

influence to talk about it because

like you say, um, building your own

brand, that brand recognition is not

as straightforward in a very crowded,

noisy place.

And so the influencers have got

to do it for you.

Um, so I don't think e commerce

is becoming more complicated.

I do think it's becoming more

nuanced and learning these

new strategies.

I say new, but it's sort of old school

thinking, but In a new way, isn't it?

Seems to be having quite a big impact.

Jay Neyer: Definitely.

Back in the day, at least from

my experience, as used to be,

their targeting was way better.

So you had some meta, you could

just tell it exactly the type of

person that you're trying to find.

Uh, and it was really good at

finding that person.

We see the opposite today.

So like, there's really only

four levers.

In the profitability equation, it's

like it's CPMs.

How expensive is it to advertise

click through rate?

Are people engaging in the content

conversion rate?

Are they making the purchase?

And then all that.

Multiply against the AOV, like how

much are people ordering for?

And today it's like, you actually want

to do as broad.

We see better performance just

going very wide and broad because

you're going to have lower CPMs versus

otherwise, if you're trying to dial all

these knobs and just try to get hyper

specific, you just, you just end up.

Cranking up your CPMs.

And so it eats up tremendously

into the equation.

So those four numbers and data

points haven't really changed.

Like even back in the day, those

were still the same numbers, but

now we're seeing like, okay, where,

where are those trends shifting?

So we anticipate CPMs to kind of

gradually increase more and more each

year as advertising gets more expensive.

How can we keep those CPMs lower,

still get the impressions.

Um, and still get the relevancy, but

without jacking up the rest of

the equation.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, but all

excellent points Jay and I did Which

gives me another two hours of

conversation that I think we need to

have really just digging into this

a little bit more But I'm also aware

of time and and so what I want to do

Uh, before I get too carried away,

I've started and I've remembered,

uh, on this particular occasion.

Uh, I've started, I say I've started,

I've been asking guests now for

a while for a question, which

I go and answer on social media.

I don't answer on the podcast.

I go and answer on social media.

If you want to know my answer to Jay's

question, come find me on LinkedIn.

Uh, that's where I'll be

answering it.

Uh, so Jay, what's your

question for me?

My question would

be if you could leave one message

on a billboard for the world to

see, what would your message be?

Matt Edmundson: Oh, that's such

a good question.

As you started talking, I was like,

if you could just leave one message.

And for some reason I went to the

old school answer machine messages.

Do you know what I mean?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, which I thought was, I thought, but

I like the billboard one as well.

So no, very good.

If you want to know my answer to that

question, like I say, come follow

me on social media.

Uh, but Jay, listen, I, uh, fascinating

conversation, but, and, um,

congratulations on all your success.

Uh, it seems to be, um, Well earned.

Uh, and I'm fascinating.

And if people want to reach out to you,

if they want to find out more about how

maybe you can help them, maybe they've

got a Shopify site.

Maybe they're six figures.

They want to go to eight figures and

just need some good old conversations

with you.

Good looking self.

How would they do that?

Yeah.

Uh, my website, lanternsol.com L A

N T E R N S O L. You can also find me on

most social media platforms, Twitter,

LinkedIn, Instagram, Jay Neyer, J A Y

and then N E Y E R. So just send

me a message.

Uh, come check out our website.

Be more than happy to help.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic.

We will, of course, link to all of

those things in the show notes, which

you can get along for free with the

transcript on the website, e commerce

podcast dot net.

Or of course, you know this by now,

if you're listening to this on a podcast

player like Apple podcast or, um,

Spotify to scroll down because the

show notes, they show them these

days, don't they?

Uh, and so we will make sure all of

those links are in the show notes,

but Jay, listen, thanks for coming

on the show, man.

Really appreciate it.

Great to meet you.

Uh, and thanks for your work.

Thanks for giving me a massive

strategy around my sleep supplement.

Thanks for having

me.

It was

Matt Edmundson: awesome.

Uh, it was great.

Uh, what a great conversation again.

Now let me do this huge round

of applause.

Yes.

We like the cheesy sound desk.

Oh yes, we do.

Now be sure to follow the e

commerce podcast wherever you get

your podcast from because of course we

have got some more great conversations

lined up and I don't want you to miss.

Any of them.

And in case no one has told you

yet today, let me be the first.

You are awesome.

Yes, you are created.

Awesome.

It's just a burden.

You've got to bear.

Jay's got to bear it.

I've got to bear it.

You've got to bear it as well.

Now, the e commerce podcast is produced

by pod junction.

You can find our entire archive

of episodes on your favorite

podcast app.

The theme music was brilliantly written

by Josh Edmundson.

And as I mentioned, the show notes,

the transcript.

The links, everything are

on the website, ecommercepodcast.

net, which where is the place you

go to to instantly sign up to the

newsletter, which I mentioned earlier.

Uh, so go do that.

But that's it for me.

That's it from Jay.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a fantastic week wherever you

are in the world.

I'll see you next time.

Bye for now.